There was a protest in my room in one of rounds 8-10 on the "diagonal" tossup involving "face diagonal" being required/not accepted (don't remember which and I don't have the set in front of me). I believe the specific point of contention was a clue about the square root of 3. I didn't know enough to decide whether that was a legitimate error, but that might be something worth looking into. On a more general note, I thought some of the Judaism bonuses were too difficult. I'll probably remember something else later, there were some other issues I noticed. On the whole, though, I thought it was an excellent novice set.

octo wrote:There was a protest in my room in one of rounds 8-10 on the "diagonal" tossup involving "face diagonal" being required/not accepted (don't remember which and I don't have the set in front of me). I believe the specific point of contention was a clue about the square root of 3. I didn't know enough to decide whether that was a legitimate error, but that might be something worth looking into. On a more general note, I thought some of the Judaism bonuses were too difficult. I'll probably remember something else later, there were some other issues I noticed. On the whole, though, I thought it was an excellent novice set.

Face diagonal is outright wrong. The clue that referred to the diagonal of a cube was "For a cube of side length s, the structure by this name has a length of s root 3." That's definitely the main diagonal; the face diagonal has a length of s root 2.

and the following bonuses:XYZ/Dreyfus/ChiracLouis XVI/Charles I/CromwellMilosevic/Yugoslavia/ClintonShogun/Tokugawa/DaimyoPassover/Moses/DayenuTalmud/Khasids/Payot

As far as Judaism bonuses, I'll stand by Dayenu as a good hard part, as it doesn't come up very often but definitely rewards real knowledge, as anyone who has been to a seder will remember it. Khasids and payot may be too hard, khasids are mine, payot Jonah's. My original third part for that bonus was going to be the Pale of Settlement (though that might also be too hard), to reward interdisciplinary knowledge of something historically important, as opposed to just deep religious knowledge. In a similar vein, my original version of the Chanukah tossup had more history clues than the version that was played. I suppose it's a question of quizbowl philosophy whether one favors clues that stick to one category or more interdisciplinary ones. I feel like including less clues of pure ritual and liturgy make religion questions more accessible, especially at a novice tournament.

Ben ChametzkyUniversity of Chicago, 2016Carbondale Community High School, 2012IHSSBCA High School Liaison 2011-2012

Hey guys, sorry to admit this but I just joined this SCOP discussion group today and I was wondering if this forum discussion includes discussion about the GHOST SCOP Novice mirror from the tournament on 10/30/2010. If so, can someone please email me the question set from SCOP Novice so that I could collaborate on the discussion? My email is mchen@imsa.edu. Thanks.